Some Comcast customers see 3-hour outage

By Nancy Sarnoff |
June 29, 2007

Houston-area Comcast Internet and telephone customers lost service for about three hours today after a Time Warner Cable fiber line was cut in Austin, affecting phone and Internet services statewide.

Comcast officially took control of the 750,000-customer Houston market from Time Warner on Jan. 1, but its high-speed Internet and phone systems are still connected to the Time Warner network.

"Comcast would like to apologize for the inconvenience that was caused by the Time Warner cable fiber cut," said Comcast spokesman Ray Purser. "We're looking forward to moving our customers to our own network we control."

That transition will begin in mid-July.

Services were restored this afternoon after traffic was routed through Time Warner's network in Dallas. The company has not been able to determine how the fiber was cut.

Customers that call Comcast will be credited for the three hours their service was down, Purser said.

Philadelphia-based Comcast officially rolled out its brand in Houston earlier this month.

Purser said the company has made significant investments to build a redundant network to prevent outages once customers convert to Comcast's network.

He did not know the number of customers that were affected but said the outage was widespread.